diff --git a/mercurial/templatefilters.py b/mercurial/templatefilters.py
--- a/mercurial/templatefilters.py
+++ b/mercurial/templatefilters.py
@@ -128,7 +128,8 @@
     """Any text. Replaces the special XML/XHTML characters "&", "<"
     and ">" with XML entities, and filters out NUL characters.
     """
-    return cgi.escape(text.replace('\0', ''), True)
+    return pycompat.sysbytes(
+        cgi.escape(pycompat.sysstr(text.replace('\0', '')), True))
 
 para_re = None
 space_re = None