Speaking to Oregon Public Broadcasting, Dwight Hammond's wife, Susan, said she "didn't really know the purpose" of the protest.
David Perry QC, prosecuting, told the court that the real purpose of the protest in London was to encourage terrorism.
2.24pm BST Brian Campfield, vice-president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said the purpose of the protest was to send out a message that there was an alternative to "cut-throat capitalism".
Standing nearby, the state senate minority leader, Jim Ananich, a Flint resident himself, said the purpose of the protest early on Thursday was to send "a strong message that Flint's not a photo-op".
The idea was that demonstrators in crowds behaved (surprise!) in varied ways some might try and stop looters or stone-hurlers in their midst; some might join them but that, in general, an aggressive police response, especially if it thwarted the original purpose of the protest, had the effect of uniting what was otherwise a disparate mass of people.
For Byrne, the purpose of the protest in Dublin was also to highlight the activities of so-called vulture funds in Ireland, which he said had bought up 10,000 distressed mortgages in the country as well as swathes of rental apartments.
More such acts are likely throughout the month.If the purpose of the protests is to change Chinese policy, they seem woefully counter-productive.
"The entire purpose of these protests is to derail the development agenda of the Narendra Modi government," the urban development minister, Venkaiah Naidu, said on Thursday.
