diff --git a/twython/twython.py b/twython/twython.py
index 0d6bb01..4d5822c 100644
--- a/twython/twython.py
+++ b/twython/twython.py
@@ -366,8 +366,6 @@ class Twython(object):
 
             e.g x.search(q='jjndf', page='2')
         """
-        if 'q' in kwargs:
-            kwargs['q'] = urllib.quote_plus(Twython.unicode2utf8(kwargs['q'], ':'))
 
         return self.get('https://search.twitter.com/search.json', params=kwargs)