diff --git a/etemplate/inc/class.link_widget.inc.php b/etemplate/inc/class.link_widget.inc.php
index 320217a34d..859fe1a78b 100644
--- a/etemplate/inc/class.link_widget.inc.php
+++ b/etemplate/inc/class.link_widget.inc.php
@@ -634,7 +634,9 @@ class link_widget
 			foreach($found as $id => $option)
 			{
 				if (!is_array($option)) $option = array('label' => $option);
-				$option['label'] = str_replace(array("\r","\n"),array(" "," "),$option['label']);
+				// xajax uses xml to transport the label, therefore we have to replace not only CR, LF
+				// (not allowed unencoded in Javascript strings) but also all utf-8 C0 and C1 plus CR and LF
+				$option['label'] = preg_replace('/[\000-\037\177-\237]/u',' ',$option['label']);
 				$script .= "opt = select.options[select.options.length] = new Option('".addslashes($option['label'])."','".addslashes($id)."');\n";
 				if (count($option) > 1)
 				{