diff --git a/ci/install_travis.sh b/ci/install_travis.sh
index bdd2c01f611b2..b9b1115090031 100755
--- a/ci/install_travis.sh
+++ b/ci/install_travis.sh
@@ -107,7 +107,7 @@ if [ "$BUILD_TEST" ]; then
 
     # build testing
     pip uninstall --yes cython
-    pip install cython==0.19.1
+    pip install cython==0.23
     ( python setup.py build_ext --inplace && python setup.py develop ) || true
 
 else
diff --git a/ci/requirements-2.7.build b/ci/requirements-2.7.build
index b2e2038faf7c3..836385671d603 100644
--- a/ci/requirements-2.7.build
+++ b/ci/requirements-2.7.build
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
 python-dateutil=2.4.1
 pytz=2013b
 numpy
-cython=0.19.1
+cython=0.23
diff --git a/ci/requirements-2.7_COMPAT.build b/ci/requirements-2.7_COMPAT.build
index 85148069a9e6a..95e3da03f161b 100644
--- a/ci/requirements-2.7_COMPAT.build
+++ b/ci/requirements-2.7_COMPAT.build
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
 numpy=1.7.1
-cython=0.19.1
+cython=0.23
 dateutil=1.5
 pytz=2013b
diff --git a/ci/requirements-2.7_LOCALE.build b/ci/requirements-2.7_LOCALE.build
index ada6686f599ca..c17730b912651 100644
--- a/ci/requirements-2.7_LOCALE.build
+++ b/ci/requirements-2.7_LOCALE.build
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
 python-dateutil
 pytz=2013b
 numpy=1.7.1
-cython=0.19.1
+cython=0.23
diff --git a/doc/source/install.rst b/doc/source/install.rst
index 55b6b5fa69efb..d45b8765cfd8a 100644
--- a/doc/source/install.rst
+++ b/doc/source/install.rst
@@ -243,7 +243,7 @@ Optional Dependencies
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
 * `Cython <http://www.cython.org>`__: Only necessary to build development
-  version. Version 0.19.1 or higher.
+  version. Version 0.23 or higher.
 * `SciPy <http://www.scipy.org>`__: miscellaneous statistical functions
 * `xarray <http://xarray.pydata.org>`__: pandas like handling for > 2 dims, needed for converting Panels to xarray objects. Version 0.7.0 or higher is recommended.
 * `PyTables <http://www.pytables.org>`__: necessary for HDF5-based storage. Version 3.0.0 or higher required, Version 3.2.1 or higher highly recommended.
diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.16.1.txt b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.16.1.txt
old mode 100755
new mode 100644
diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.17.1.txt b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.17.1.txt
old mode 100755
new mode 100644
diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.20.0.txt b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.20.0.txt
index 8fdef39a3ae98..7e72a49dc9636 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.20.0.txt
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.20.0.txt
@@ -119,4 +119,5 @@ Performance Improvements
 Bug Fixes
 ~~~~~~~~~
 
-- Bug in ``astype()`` where ``inf`` values were incorrectly converted to integers. Now raises error now with ``astype()`` for Series and DataFrames (:issue:`14265`)
\ No newline at end of file
+- Bug in ``astype()`` where ``inf`` values were incorrectly converted to integers. Now raises error now with ``astype()`` for Series and DataFrames (:issue:`14265`)
+- Require at least 0.23 version of cython to avoid problems with character encodings (:issue:`14699`)
diff --git a/doc/sphinxext/numpydoc/LICENSE.txt b/doc/sphinxext/numpydoc/LICENSE.txt
old mode 100755
new mode 100644
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 2bef65c9719dc..7a55daa74b1c5 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ def is_platform_mac():
 import versioneer
 cmdclass = versioneer.get_cmdclass()
 
-min_cython_ver = '0.19.1'
+min_cython_ver = '0.23'
 try:
     import Cython
     ver = Cython.__version__