Index: django/utils/tzinfo.py
===================================================================
--- django/utils/tzinfo.py	(revision 9887)
+++ django/utils/tzinfo.py	(working copy)
@@ -4,9 +4,15 @@
 import time
 from datetime import timedelta, tzinfo
 from django.utils.encoding import smart_unicode
+import sys
+from encodings import codecs
 
 try:
     DEFAULT_ENCODING = locale.getdefaultlocale()[1] or 'ascii'
+    try:
+        codecs.getdecoder(DEFAULT_ENCODING)
+    except LookupError:
+        DEFAULT_ENCODING = sys.getdefaultencoding() or 'ascii'
 except:
     # Any problems at all determining the locale and we fallback. See #5846.
     DEFAULT_ENCODING = 'ascii'