The Mermaid Project
1. Our policy on Mermaids as beings:
a) Mermaids are intelligent creatures and though they are marine mammals they are still our cousins and we treat them with fully fledged human rights. They are to be treated as absolutely fairly as possible and perhaps even more so as they will definitely have different hierarchies and laws to us.
b) Mermaids are accepted as citizens to whichever ocean they reside in and their laws of oceans if they have any are to be treated with great respect.
c) Mermaids are real. They are not mythology or myth or legend or a fairy tale. These words will not be used as insult against them and their existence, only in polite debate and discussion.
d) Mermaids will be treated as a protect species upon their evidence and any harm to come to a Mermaid via human interference or interaction will be seen as a crime and punished in human courts of law by both human and Mermaid participants be the Mermaids willing to testify.
e) Humans are a threat to Mermaids and we know that there is some sort of coverup. Denmark is not covering up the evidence of Mermaids, however, it has been made clear that South Africa, the United States of America and the United Kingdom have in the past at least to date attempted to hide from the public the existence of our cousins, knowingly.
2. Concerning first meeting, ambassadors and laws:
a) Upon undeniable proof of discovery and contact with them, effective immediately merpeople will be treated by the same rights as a human child. However, the exception is that the Ocean is their home and their nationality is universal: "Of Earth", and they will not recieve a sole nationality to any human nation, however they may be recieved as guests wherever they wish to go and have a 'universal' passport due to species. Merpeople shall not be harmed, experimented upon, held captive or go un-accepted by anybody.
b) Merpeople will be left as they are should they wish and will not be treated as animals, seeing as we are to understand they are with near-human intellect due to the size of the skull discovered in South Africa. This data would indicate that they have a sizeable brain and therefore like us a highly evolved intelligence and are capable of empathy, although no laws of humans shall a mermaid be sentenced by until their kind and our kind are able to fully understand and intermingle. Mermaid-on-mermaid affairs are nothing to do with humans and this is not our business. Humans shall not interfere with the likes of merpeople.
c) The Mermaid Project Team will be called into resopnse immediately upon contact with mermaids. Our team is a communications organization and every one of our members is prepared to greet the merpeople whom by choice contact us with a high level of courtesy, calmness and respect for our cousins. The greetings shall be as described:
i) Members of TMP Team will attempt firstly silent contact, instead of words we will signify using body language that we are welcoming them into our culture and knowledge. By staying low to what will most likely be the floor of a boat, or the ground nearby, we shall bear forth our hands and show them that we mean no harm and hide nothing from them. They are to be treated as if they are above us.
ii) Members of TMP Team will take full responsibility for any acts committed by the Merpeople who make contact as well as their kind if further interactions occur. TMP will act on the Merpeople's behalf as ambassadors, as well as beginning to teach each other our separate langauges. As we know from the recordings already taken of their voices, they have an incredibly intricate language that comes from ultra-sonic pulses. If they can speak as we do, then perhaps we can create a mutual language to be spoken between our species. If not, then we will learn from recordings how to reply to any language the Merpeople send our way.
iii) The Merpeople are not humans and are not bound by human law. They cannot walk on land and most likely cannot survive our of the water for very long. We would assume their position in this would be somewhat between a dolphin and a seal - dolphins cannot live well from the water but they are flexible enough to get in and out (unlike whales.) Seals are perfectly happy on land and in the ocean. However, if this were the case for merpeople, then they would be on land a lot more. It's much more likely they are similar to dolphins. For any contact, humans will enter their domain where they feel safest.
iv) Human to Merpeople contact will go entirely through The Mermaid Project Team. This includes military, political and the majority of scientific contact. We have genuinely their best interests at heart and if you do too, then you may join us, however be prepared to be scrutinized.
v) Once merpeople are truly proven to be in existence, The Mermaid Project Team will release a statement that is to be examined by scientific journals and major political figures, which for example would include the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the President of the United States of America. The Mermaid Project Team will be acting, as previously stated, as translators and ambassadors for humans on the behalf of the human population of the world.
d) Laws effective immediately in all countries who deem to recognize the existence of Mermaids once they are officially discovered and before also if they see fit to agree. The law is conditional in the sense that until their existence is proven 100% and undeniably by the nation's leader and the United Nations Secretary, they will not be effective. All laws will be punished via the judgement of a United Kingdom court of law.
i) The Merpeople Ocean Citizenship Act: Merpeople are recognized not as assigned to any nation, but as citizens of the world. They may be granted nationalities under their desires but will not be seen as anything other than predominantly Ocean citizens.
ii) The Merpeople Protection Act: Merpeople are to be treated as equals to humans and so will not be hunted for food or sport, not to be attacked, hurt, damaged, injured, killed or compromised in anyway by a human cause. Their existence should carry on as normal for them, as it has thusfar without too much human interaction. Any human activity that upsets their natural balance will be halted and abandoned effective immediately.
iii) The Merpeople Equality Act: Merpeople are treated not as inferior in anyway to human beings. These are our cousins and although their DNA tested in the past has come up as not Homosapien Sapien, but very similar indeed, they are to be treated as just another race of ape-person and so may be treated as rightfully by society and all communities as every other human being deserves to be treated. Not only human rights, but absolute equality to the highest standard. They are a gift, a long lost relative, and we should be welcoming them, not disregarding and destroying this relationship they offer us.
3. In the case of legal action taken against us:
a) In the case of action taken against this website, we will be prepared to dispute that this is anything but what is written here being the absolute truth and heart-felt beliefs of those individuals involved. Only those involved by choice are listed on the page "Our Team" and it is these who shall be partially responsible. However, the site administrator, writer and creator of The Mermaid Project is Verity Brown and she must be the first to be contacted about any issues found in the site structure, paragraphs or words written.
b) If any government wishes to take action against our endeavours to find mermaids we will be sure to speak on behalf of all believers in the world. We have the right to the information we gather on public waters, in public waters and on public land which is open on behalf of the host country we may be researching in. We reserve the right to withhold information from any authorities that may inspect our activity, as it is personal data for the project, which whilst open to members of the public does require oath from any member wishing to join the team and gain access to the records we will collect.
c) The host country of our experiments and data collection expeditions will of course have every right to ask what we are doing and why, and we will answer truthfully. However, we understand the laws set out in many countries around the world where we intend research projects and we will demand that everything is in order before any boats we have hired or bought are boarded by anybody, including those who call themselves the law. We will expect credentials and identification, as well as reasoning and laws spelled out before any confiscation of data or findings. This includes video, recordings of any sort, biological samples, spreadsheets, graphics, written data of all kinds and equipment we own.
d) We have the duty to protect our planet and what is in the best interests of the people and are willing and welcome to the input of new revealations and any data that others from outside sources have to offer. The planet's interests come before all others including military experimentation, economical and capital exploits, as well as anything for the gain of humans over wildlife and alternative species.