POLICE have launched a hate crime investigation after flyers were posted publicising a notorious white supremacist movement.

Advertising the Church of Creativity, a movement historically linked to far-right terrorism in the US, the leaflets were stuck on to bus stops and posted into letter boxes.

The leaflet calls on recipients to join the “religion” with the words: ‘It is fight or die: What will you do, white man?’

Among the messages included on the flyer include a passage equating non-white immigration with “white genocide”.

The Argus has received reports of the flyers appearing in Ditchling Road and Osborne Road, both in Brighton.

Police said they were investigating how widely they had been distributed.

A force spokesman said: “We were contacted on April 1 to a report of racially offensive posters being put up at bus stops and delivered to homes in Brighton.

“We are currently investigating how many posters have been distributed and where.

“The incident is being investigated as a hate crime.”

One man who saw the flyer in bus stops in Ditchling Road, said: “I felt shocked to see this kind of thing.

“Brighton is a multi-racial place. We have a good reputation.”

Founded by Ben Klassen in 1973 as the Church of the Creator, the ‘religion’s’ third high priest, Matthew Hale, was jailed in 2005 for plotting to kill a US judge.

Other members were also convicted of violent offences in the 1990s.

James Mac, from the Church of Creativity Britain, said the group did not “promote, tolerate nor incite illegal activity,” adding it “advocates racial separation – the very opposite of white supremacy”.

However, its poster claims the “white race is nature’s finest” and Mr Mac said supporters regard the white race as the “pinnacle of evolution”.

Mr Mac told The Argus the church “cannot disclose the identity of the person posting the flyers, but the more people the better”.

He added: “We cannot say exactly how many are in Brighton, only that there are many hundreds of Creativity adherents throughout Britain and we are growing rapidly.”

The leaflets also appeared on the streets of Liverpool and Merseyside in March.

A Sussex Police spokesman said the Church of Creativity Britain is not on the list of proscribed terror groups and organisations in the UK.

The American 'Creativity' religion

The movement was founded in 1973 as the Church of the Creator (COTC), by Ben Klassen, a former Florida state legislator.

Among its 16 Commandments are the words: “It is our sacred goal to populate the lands of this earth with white people exclusively.”

In 1986, Carl Messick, the church’s ‘security chief,’ fired at a Georgia couple who accidentally drove on to the COTC grounds. He was jailed for seven years.

In 1991, black sailor Harold Mansfield was shot in a parking lot by George Loeb, a ‘reverend’ in the church, who was jailed for life.

In 1990, Jeremiah Knesal and Wayne Wooten, described by the FBI as COTC members, pleaded guilty to bombing the office of a black civil rights group.

In 1993 Klassen committed suicide and Dr Rick McCarty took over the role as the head of the ‘church’.

In 1995 new leader Matthew Hale renamed the group the World Church of the Creator.

In 1999 COTC adherent Benjamin Smith shot two people and killed nine others in a drive-by shooting.

In 2003 the church split into small groups known as the Church of Creativity.

In 2005 Hale was jailed for conspiracy to murder the judge who was presiding over a copyright battle with the church after an internal disagreement.