Issue #1078392 (non UTF-8 input) blocks the release creation

When a committer's name contain non UTF-8 input, it causes an exception in drupal.org, and it prevents the module maintainer to create new releases based on existing tags. My module is http://drupal.org/project/xc, and I have some tags (6.x-1.1-beta1, 6.x-1.1-beta2), from I haven't created release, and on the Create Project release page (http://drupal.org/node/add/project-release/400662) these are not available from the Git release tag or branch dropdown list.

I submitted another issue (http://drupal.org/node/1078392), of which this current issue is an important side effect I mentioned in a comment. On IRC channel #drupal-gitsupport rfay suggested me to create a separate issue.