Say Their Names: Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, Deah Shaddy Barakat, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha

Dr. Mohammad Abu-Salha testified this week before members of the House Judiciary Committee on hate crimes and the rise of white nationalism.

You may not have heard about it, but his testimony, describing the autopsy reports for his murdered daughters and son-in-law, left some members of the committee covering their mouths and in tears:

"I must be one of a few physicians, if not the only one, who read his own children's murder autopsy reports and details. They are seared into my memory."

The February 10, 2015 murders of 21-year-old Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, her 23-year-old husband Deah Shaddy Barakat, and 19-year-old sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, shocked the Chapel Hill, North Carolina community where they had lived.

The Department of Justice investigated the deaths as a hate crime, but the suspect Craig Hicks, a neighbor, was ultimately charged with three counts of first-degree murder.

"Bullets macerated Yusor's and Razan's brains. Deah took many bullets to his arms and chest before he fell down to the ground. After that, the murderer saw that he was still breathing and shot him again in the mouth. … The last time we saw them in their coffins, Yusor's forehead was bulging and her hazel eyes had turned grey and lifeless. What was once Razan's warm and smiling face filled with life was now a lifeless stone cold and deadly pale."

Dr. Abu-Salha recalled an officer trying to comfort him at the scene of the murder:

"(The) officer whispered: 'They didn't suffer, it was swift, one shot to the back of the head.' His statement did not make it more bearable; nothing did."

Abu-Salha described the six weeks between the marriage of his daughter and son-in-law and their murders as "the happiest days of our lives... followed by one of the most painful days, filled with the greatest heartache we have ever experienced." His daughters were committed to volunteering at a dental clinic for Syrian refugees, and for a program that fed the homeless, among others:

"My wife and I raised them to be Muslim-Americans, proud of their country and their community. As Muslim as apple pie ... I'm sorry, as American as apple pie. That can be Muslim, too."

Then he added that it was their Muslim identity that got his daughters killed. Yusor had complained to her father about their "condescending" neighbor, Hicks, who "told her he hated how she looked and dressed."

"I am afraid for our country. In 2016 the FBI recorded a 67% increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes, and just weeks ago a young man in Indiana was shot in the back of the head by a man shouting anti-Muslim slurs."

During questioning, Abu-Salha recounted some of the hateful online messages he saw after his children's deaths … a tweet that said, "three down, 1.6 billion to go." … another that praised the murderer, "Greg [sic] Hicks should be given the Medal of Honor and released from custody." 

In his testimony, Abu-Salha urged the U.S. government to take similar action to stem hate speech online in the wake of his family’s tragedy and of the Christchurch shooting:

"We miss our children so much. At times the pain is just as sharp now as when they died. I ask you, I truly plead to you, not to let another American family go through this because our government would not act to protect all Americans.”

Our government does not act to protect all Americans; our president speaks hate of Muslims, and Mexicans, calling them terrorists and rapists. But the terrorist who took Yusor, Deah and Razan from their family was white, American, homegrown, and fed by hate from the top.

"Hate violence against members of my community cannot be ignored any longer. For far too long our public officials have turned a blind eye to the extremist violence that is killing our children – that killed my children. In 2012, a white supremacist murdered six and injured four at a Sikh gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. In 2015, a white nationalist filled with racial hatred entered the predominantly African American Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, killing nine individuals. In 2018, a white nationalist burst into the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and shouted anti-Semitic slurs, killing 11 worshippers. How much longer will we allow this to continue?"

As Dr. Abu-Salha said at the end of his testimony:

"Please remember them, Yusor, Deah and Razan. They are my children and they are gone."

And if I have anything to say about it, they will not be forgotten. We cannot continue to live in a country that hates, that listens to hate speech from our so-called president, that allows hate speech to be spread online.

Oh yeah, I’m all for Free Speech, and Hate Speech is Free, but there should be consequences.

And we need to enact Hate Crimes laws because Yusor, Deah and Razan weren’t slaughtered for their cars, their wallets, their jewelry; they were meticulously gunned down in their own homes because they are, were, Muslim.

That is Hate.

CBS News