diff --git a/brp-check-suse.changes b/brp-check-suse.changes
index e14ad49..b87fe38 100644
--- a/brp-check-suse.changes
+++ b/brp-check-suse.changes
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+-------------------------------------------------------------------
+Mon Nov 12 12:33:25 UTC 2012 - coolo@suse.com
+
+- document the need for full perl
+
 -------------------------------------------------------------------
 Sun Jul  1 19:37:50 UTC 2012 - coolo@suse.com
 
diff --git a/brp-check-suse.spec b/brp-check-suse.spec
index 5435d62..010dd9f 100644
--- a/brp-check-suse.spec
+++ b/brp-check-suse.spec
@@ -21,6 +21,8 @@ AutoReqProv:    off
 Summary:        Build root policy check scripts
 License:        GPL-2.0+
 Group:          Development/Tools/Building
+# we need the full perl because of XML Parsing and utf-8 
+Requires:       perl
 Version:        1.0
 Release:        0
 Url:            http://gitorious.org/opensuse/brp-check-suse/