diff --git a/lib/ansible/modules/web_infrastructure/jira.py b/lib/ansible/modules/web_infrastructure/jira.py
index 9912aaaf28..30c523727f 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/modules/web_infrastructure/jira.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/modules/web_infrastructure/jira.py
@@ -263,7 +263,7 @@ def request(url, user, passwd, timeout, data=None, method=None):
     body = response.read()
 
     if body:
-        return json.loads(body)
+        return json.loads(to_text(body, errors='surrogate_or_strict'))
     else:
         return {}