Photograph: Karen Robinson for the Observer

   Matthew Taylor

   Sunday 18 October 2015 11.58 BST Last modified on Monday 19 October
   2015 00.45 BST
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   public will be judged by history, according to actor Juliet Stevenson.

   Stevenson, who has campaigned for the rights of refugees and migrants
   for more than 25 years said the arrival in Europe of hundreds of
   thousands of people fleeing war, poverty and persecution in the past 12
   months had raised fundamental questions about the kind of country the
   UK wants to be.

   Related: Time to address a refugee crisis of our own making | Letters
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   in extreme cases of humanitarian need ... It is time now to identify
   ourselves again as a nation that does respond as compassionate human
   beings.”

   The actor first became involved in the rights of refugees in the 1990s
   and is currently campaigning for funds to allow her local refugee
   centre to open more days each week. She said politicians had repeatedly
   failed to rise to the challenge of helping and protecting people whose
   lives had been devastated by war and persecution, but added the
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   from last month due to funding cuts. It offers a range of services from
   classes in English, dance and art to advice and support as well as food
   and clothes.

   So far the appeal has raised £15,000 and if donations continue the
   centre hopes to hit its £30,000 target by Christmas, which would allow
   the centre to open for a second day each week from January 2016.
   Stevenson said: “It does wonderful important work and offers a place of
   safety and security to people who have neither, whose entire lives have
   been shattered.”

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