The father of two of the Muslim students who were killed last February had a special message he wanted to send on the one-year anniversary of their deaths.

“They were charming, good looking, intelligent, achieved, articulate, published, philanthropists, athletic, well-wisher for everybody. And who loved this country so much that they blended their blood with the soil.”

That was how Dr. Mohammad Abu-Salha described the three Muslim students – his two daughters, Yusor and Razan, and son-in-law, Deah Barakat – who were killed on February 10, 2015.

Police said immediately after the triple shooting that the motive appeared to be an ongoing parking dispute, but the family has maintained it was a hate crime.

“We knew they were not murdered over a parking dispute, just watch the court and you will see what I’m talking about,” Abu-Salha said. “But we had calls from foreign leaders who wanted to invest in this – probably politically – and we said, ‘No. This is an American story.’”

The American story that Abu-Salha told to hundreds of dental students and community members on Wednesday was one of three young Mulsim-Americans who loved their country and their religion without pause.

“We’re glad to have been able to raise practicing Muslims yet also good Americans,” Abu-Salha said. “There was no contradiction at all.”

Abu-Salha said that, at a time when religious tensions are heightened among certain groups, his family was touched by the outpouring of support from people of all faiths following the shooting in Chapel Hill.

“We had the support of a great country, where we believed in democracy and believed everybody is equal. And we believed in liberty,” Abu-Salha said. “We are very excited and happy to see that there are more people – far more people – in this country who believe that we are all one, than the few who want to brand us ‘Muslims’ and label us with all of the labels that terrorists wish for.”

Abu-Salha said that unity was important in fighting back against the message that he says terrorists are trying to spread.

“By being one community that embraces all faiths and respects all shades of the American rainbow, we do not play into the hands of terrorists,” Abu-Salha said. “We do not allow them to divide us. This is what they want to see.”

Abu-Salha said the support his family has received and the impact that the victims – dubbed ‘Our Three Winners’ – left behind shows the types of people they were.

“It pleases me and my family to see that the time we spent with our children every Sunday, for two hours or three hours, teaching them the correct interpretation of our Quran, the faith, did not go in vain,” said Abu-Salha. “They really understood it. And they lived it.”

Abu-Salha remembered the victims not solely as Muslims, not only as Americans, but as the best of both.

“We celebrate everybody who wants to be on this soil and wants to help the world to look at us as the beacon of liberty and democracy, too,” Abu-Salha said.

“Our children stood up for a symbol. And that was this American culture.”