diff --git a/Lib/test/test_multibytecodec_support.py b/Lib/test/test_multibytecodec_support.py
index cf7f288..3afe3a9 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_multibytecodec_support.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_multibytecodec_support.py
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@
 
 import sys, codecs
 import unittest, re
+from httplib import HTTPException
 from test import test_support
 from StringIO import StringIO
 
@@ -268,7 +269,7 @@
         unittest.TestCase.__init__(self, *args, **kw)
         try:
             self.open_mapping_file() # test it to report the error early
-        except IOError:
+        except (IOError, HTTPException):
             self.skipTest("Could not retrieve "+self.mapfileurl)
 
     def open_mapping_file(self):
diff --git a/Lib/test/test_normalization.py b/Lib/test/test_normalization.py
index 6a75741..f9f4f68 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_normalization.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_normalization.py
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 from test.test_support import run_unittest, open_urlresource
 import unittest
 
+from httplib import HTTPException
 import sys
 import os
 from unicodedata import normalize, unidata_version
@@ -43,7 +44,7 @@
         # Hit the exception early
         try:
             open_urlresource(TESTDATAURL)
-        except IOError:
+        except (IOError, HTTPException):
             self.skipTest("Could not retrieve " + TESTDATAURL)
         for line in open_urlresource(TESTDATAURL):
             if '#' in line: