Activists who sabotaged the Dakota Access Pipeline to speak at the Iowa City Public Library

Jessica Reznicek and Ruby Montoya, who announced last month they had been sabotaging the Dakota Access pipeline, will be speaking at the Iowa City Public Library on Saturday.

“They’ll be speaking about why they decided to go beyond nonviolence,” Dawn Jones, who organized the event, said.

At a press conference before surrendering to authorities on July 28, Reznicek and Montoya said they had “explored and exhausted all avenues of process,” before they started setting fire to construction equipment and damaging pipeline valves.

Reznicek and Montoya have not been charged yet with the acts they confessed to, but earlier this month the FBI raided the Berrigan Catholic Worker House in Des Moines, where the two are currently living. According to media reports, the FBI had a search warrant to seize evidence related to Reznicek and Montoya’s anti-pipeline activities, and agents left with 20 bags and boxes of evidence.

Reznicek and Montoya were also named in a lawsuit filed against environmental groups this week by Energy Transfer Partners, the Texas-based parent company of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The lawsuit alleges that environmental groups opposing the pipeline constitute a criminal conspiracy attempting to enrich themselves by falsely claiming pipelines are unsafe.

Jones anticipates the event will last 90 minutes, and that Reznicek will take questions from the audience.