Also, when using Python 3.2 it seems to be the default behavior

  Python 3.2.3 (default, Oct 19 2012, 20:10:41) 
  [GCC 4.6.3] on linux2
  Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
  >>> import re
  >>> re.match(r'\d', '੧')
  <_sre.SRE_Match object at 0x7f188f6d4850>

Yes, but not by default.