●  Physical attack in Warszawa Śródmieście

In late August 2026, in central Warsaw, a man was assaulted in the street after passers-by heard him speaking a foreign language. According to his own video account, he was walking and talking with a friend in Belarusian when an unknown Polish woman stopped them and demanded that they speak Polish because they were in Poland. When he replied that as a tourist he could speak any language he wanted with his friend and tried to walk away, she followed him, grabbed his clothes and pushed him.

The woman then called on other passers-by for help. A man who was passing by seized the foreigner by his belongings and bag to stop him leaving. When the victim tried to get away, the man chased him, pressed him against a parked car, threw him to the ground and began to strangle him; he only loosened his grip after the victim started choking and shouted that he could not breathe. While those involved waited for the police, another passer-by joined in and publicly berated the foreigner for being in Poland without knowing the language.

The victim is a US citizen who has lived in the United States for many years and had come to Warsaw for a few days to visit friends; his wife published the account of the incident. According to her, the woman continued to complain about his lack of Polish in front of the officers and openly called herself a xenophobe. Police took statements from all parties at the scene and released everyone.