diff --git a/etc/zebradb/etc/phrases-icu.xml b/etc/zebradb/etc/phrases-icu.xml
index b27b06a9da..076c5ac67d 100644
--- a/etc/zebradb/etc/phrases-icu.xml
+++ b/etc/zebradb/etc/phrases-icu.xml
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 <icu_chain locale="">
-  <transform rule="[:Control:] Any-Remove"/>
+  <!-- Remove control characters except \t\n\r -->
+  <transform rule="[\x00-\x08\x0B\x0C\x0E-\x1F\x7F] Any-Remove"/>
   <tokenize rule="l"/>
   <transform rule="[:Punctuation:] Remove"/>
   <transform rule="NFD"/>
diff --git a/etc/zebradb/etc/words-icu.xml b/etc/zebradb/etc/words-icu.xml
index 38af51fae5..57498cbca4 100644
--- a/etc/zebradb/etc/words-icu.xml
+++ b/etc/zebradb/etc/words-icu.xml
@@ -1,7 +1,8 @@
 <icu_chain locale="">
   <transliterate rule="\'>\ "/>
   <transliterate rule="[:Number:] { '-' > '' "/>
-  <transform rule="[:Control:] Any-Remove"/>
+  <!-- Remove control characters except \t\n\r -->
+  <transform rule="[\x00-\x08\x0B\x0C\x0E-\x1F\x7F] Any-Remove"/>
   <tokenize rule="l"/>
   <transform rule="[[:WhiteSpace:][:Punctuation:]] Remove"/>
   <transform rule="NFD"/>