diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index f3a662c9..9f040288 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+Tue Jan  9 22:24:26 CET 2007 Daniel Veillard <daniel@veillard.com>
+
+	* python/libxml.c: fix a memory leak in the python string handling
+	  when SAX event are passed back to the python handlers
+
 Thu Jan  4 18:27:49 CET 2007 Daniel Veillard <daniel@veillard.com>
 
 	* xmlreader.c: fix xmlTextReaderSetup() description
diff --git a/python/libxml.c b/python/libxml.c
index 6e9a78ee..747e44cf 100644
--- a/python/libxml.c
+++ b/python/libxml.c
@@ -773,6 +773,8 @@ pythonStartElement(void *user_data, const xmlChar * name,
                     attrvalue = Py_None;
                 }
                 PyDict_SetItem(dict, attrname, attrvalue);
+		Py_DECREF(attrname);
+		Py_DECREF(attrvalue);
             }
         }
 
@@ -1170,6 +1172,7 @@ pythonAttributeDecl(void *user_data,
         for (node = tree; node != NULL; node = node->next) {
             newName = PyString_FromString((char *) node->name);
             PyList_SetItem(nameList, count, newName);
+	    Py_DECREF(newName);
             count++;
         }
         result = PyObject_CallMethod(handler, (char *) "attributeDecl",