Headache Stencil is the pseudonym of a graffiti artist who has been painting political imagery for years. His anti-coup messages have gone viral and has given him a fan base but have also put him in the crosshairs of the state. He claims that he has been stalked and harassed by the state security apparatus.
Here is his story in his own words.
The police have been monitoring me. They’ve always been monitoring me but recently it has been different and it feels different.
Usually, when the police would come to visit me, they would stand quite visibly in front of the condo for the security to see.
But in the latest incident, they were hiding around the elevated walkway that is quite some distance away from the condo and they were taking pictures of the entrance of the condo and the surrounding soi.
It felt threatening, dangerous, like something was not right.
I was not at the condo when this happened, it was my friends who were at my condo that saw this. They were going to cross the street to buy water. When the police saw people approaching, he acted like he was doing something else and not taking pictures.
So my friend hid nearby and spied on him and once the security official thought no one was watching he resumed taking pictures.
First Contact
I was first contacted on June 24 in the afternoon through Facebook message. I shared a photo online that showed images of the Siamese Revolution. The person asked me where was this picture taken. I told them that I cannot tell you.
The person continued to ask which day was this taken. That’s when I went to this person’s profile to find out that he is police. I talked to him and said, ‘hey you are a police officer, you can go find it from the CCTV footage yourself’.
I screen captured the messages and sent them to different international organizations. After that, I continued my day and didn’t think anything
I arrived that night at my condo around half pass midnight, I noticed at the 7-11 across from my condo that there is a police officer sitting on his motorbike.
This is when I started to feel that something was off. I noticed that at the table where the security guard of the condo was sitting there were four unidentified individuals sitting there with him. When he saw my headlights and came to open the gate, I asked him ‘who are those people?’ he told me ‘police’. That was when I backed out and drove away..
I went to look at the security footage and I found out that the moment I arrived, two of the four individuals that came walked over to their car. This made me think that if I actually went in, I would have been kidnapped.
Thai media failure
On another day, I was coming out from another interview.
Ever since Wanchalearm was disappeared I have tried to be very cautious to see cars that are following me.
Now in this narrow soi, I saw a white Toyota fortuner keeping a good distance from me. Now, I don’t watch many action movies but they were keeping a good distance and I could not see the license plate. Even when I tried going faster or slower it continued to follow me.
To really make sure, I found an interchange to take a U-turn bridge and the car kept following me. I did this twice more and it still kept following me. So I drove into a soi and parked in front of some houses.
It seems weird that they would know where I was being interviewed. Either they were following me since I left my house that morning or they were following me through the data on my phone.
I have reached out to different international organization and they are quite concerned but I don’t understand why Thai media wont even report on my harassment.
If the Thai media would report on it, I think there would be enough pressure where I would not be harassed anymore.
It has become a constant harassment from the state and it is giving me a lot of stress. There was another incident where a police officer came with three other individuals to the house. The three other people didn’t identify themselves as police and it just all seemed threatening.
Things like this shouldn’t happen in a democracy and if you are a plainclothes officer then when asked you have to identify yourself.
There is CCTV footage of this incident, we can identify the police officer and the other individuals, we can ask him who gave the order to harass me. But the media doesn’t seem to care and they turn a blind eye to it and dissidents like me will continued to be harassed and stalked and made to feel threatened in their own country.
I question whether the Thai media actually wants society to be better.
They only investigate cases after its too late, after the dissident is dead or missing. I am still alive! Why wont they investigate my case now when something can be done.
And ordinary people investigating this can only go so far. Here, there is evidence that clearly shows illegal activity.
On feeling unsafe
I have been feeling unsafe for sometime and have considered that I might need to move out of my current accommodation or even leave the country. But what I am doing is recording Thai political history, and in another sense, I am calling out for something through my art.
If I was to go into exile and I can’t keep doing what I am doing, I think my art is not meant to be done outside the country. I understand that other people might go into exile and continue their activities like academic. But my function is art and art can question the state as much as any essay would.
Do I need to do art that only supports the establishment in order to survive?
