Python urllib HTTPS request with proxies

example.py

HTTP_PROXY = {
    "http": 'http://proxy.host:8888',
    "https": 'http://proxy.host:8888'
}


def create(self, stanza, passwd):
    '''
    send xml data to ripe
    return True on succes or HTTPError on error
    '''
    import urllib2
    import urllib
    payload = stanza.toxml()
    headers = {'content-type': 'application/xml'}
    params = {'password': passwd}
    proxy = urllib2.ProxyHandler(HTTP_PROXY)
    opener = urllib2.build_opener(proxy)
    urllib2.install_opener(opener)
    url = 'https://apps.db.ripe.net/whois/create?{0}'.format(
        urllib.urlencode(params)
    )
    r = urllib2.Request(url, payload, headers)
    try:
        response = urllib2.urlopen(r)
        response_header = response.info()
        self.code = response.getcode()
        self.header = response_header
        self.payload = payload
        return self.code, self.header, self.payload

    except urllib2.HTTPError as exc:
        LOG.warning("Commit Error {0} URL was : {1}".format(exc.code, url))
        return exc.code, exc.read(), payload