Kinda sucks. Public information is public, I'm interested to see how they plan on proving the charges.
Well, I think they intend to prove that he was not merely making public information public, but also directing people in how to evade arrest for what was -- rightly or wrongly -- illegal behavior.
I should note here that I don't particularly care what people think about whether it should be illegal to continue protesting after the cops order you to stop, all that matters in this case is that it is. I do, however, feel obligated to point out that going to jail has always been a part of civil disobedience, and people who refuse to face up to that strike me as a bit cowardly.
Even then, there are all kinds of shades of grey. I personally wanted to spread information about the event to as many people as possible. Would that enable people to protest longer by evading police? I guess so. Would it enable people who just wanted to stay away from any trouble to not come near? Yeah.
Additionally, I'm unsure as to what the law says in this situation: if a policeman gives me an unlawful order, and I don't follow it, is that illegal? I was under the impression that it's illegal to disobey a lawfully given order.
In any case, this whole thing is one big giant mess.
This sounds like something they teach in government-run schools...
So all those Iranian protesters should have simply courted arrests? No. There is a particular type of civil disobedience that requires not evading of arrests. Then there are some whose explicit purpose is to fill up jails (jail bharo andolans, literally "fill the jails protests" are an occasional feature in civil disobedience in India, a relic from the British era). I do not agree with your sentiment. I think you decide whether or not you court arrests based on the goals of the movement and the perceived progress of that goal based on doing so.
The guy is a self-proclaimed anarchist. That's all the evidence, sadly, that the police needs in order to prosecute him. According to the police, he was "coordinating" the riot by updating the status of the officers in real-time, or something of that sort.
Another pacific protest needs to be made. This seems to be getting out of control how easy it has been getting for the government to control what gets passed onto the public and what doesn't. Manipulation of the media needs to end.