London Mayor Launches New Fund With Google To Tackle Extremism, Hate Crimes

London Mayor Sadiq Khan on Tuesday launched a new 800,000 pounds fund alongside Google.org to fight violent extremism and hate crimes in the British capital.

The Shared Endeavour Fund, funded equally by Google UK and the Mayor's City Hall office, will be run by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue for grassroots organisations to bid for tiered grants of upto 50,000 pounds (USD 65,001).

Mr Khan made reference to the most recent attack in London in November last year, when a convicted terrorist hailing from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) killed two people in a knife-attack at the London Bridge.

The London Mayor launched the new scheme at the Google UK headquarters in London.

"Extremism, intolerance and hate crime of any kind has absolutely no place in our city and I have worked closely with the police and all communities across London as we battle against this scourge," said Mr Khan.

"Sadly, we have also too often seen extremism on our streets with the horrific terror attack in London Bridge in November last year - as well as homophobic, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents," the Mayor said.

"We know that leaving the EU will raise tensions and bring new challenges - that is why it is so vital we empower our communities to help deliver change now," he said.

Rowan Barnett of Google.org said that keeping the online community safe was the group's "top priority".

"As part of this commitment, Google.org supports solutions that fight hate and extremism at a local level which help foster positive change in the UK. We believe communities and grassroots programmes are an incredibly important part of the effort to encourage collaboration, cooperation, and sensitivity across London," he said.