Q:

DB table rows including Persian characters not showing properly on the web page

I've connected my php webpage to my .mdb database via odbc connection. 
My first question is:
What should I do to avoid ???? instead of proper Persian characters, when displaying my db table rows on the page.
My sample html code:
<form action="" method="post">
    <input type="text" value="my_value">
</form>

My sample PHP code:
<?php

$conn = odbc_connect('my_db','','');
if (!$conn) {
    exit("Connection Failed: " . $conn);
}

$submitted_value = $_POST["my_value"];
$sql = "SELECT * FROM my_table WHERE column1 = '$submitted_value'";
$result = odbc_exec($conn,$sql);
odbc_close($conn);

?>

My charset is already set to UTF-8 in php.ini.
And my second question is: (which I think might be because of the above problem): 
When I type Persian in the html input value tag (instead of "my_value") and already have a row with exactly the same value in column 1, nothing is returned.
But When I change both value tag name and column 1 value of the table row to English. The result is returned.
Can anyone help me with this? I appreciate in advance.

A:

Check to make sure your database is also configured to store UTF8, some only do ASCII.  Also, when displaying, make sure the HTML document is configured to display UTF8.
Example:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-6">

source: http://www.webdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?224111-Can-t-see-my-persian-arabic-text-in-HTML-editor

