Protesters Dog Hitler Historian's Tour

Protesters met the rightwing historian and Hitler biographer David Irving in Washington state while on an American tour entitled The Problems of Writing About Hitler.

Irving, 64, who lectures regularly in the US where he has a small but loyal following, is due to speak in San Francisco tomorrow and later in Sacramento and Salt Lake City. The locations of the meetings are kept secret until the last moment and people attending must show identification.

On Sunday, in Maltby, Washington, protesters held 'No Nazis' and 'Not in our town' signs outside the building where he was speaking. Anti-Irving activists also took photos of the cars and number plates of those attending the gathering.

Supporters of Irving were told to meet at a community centre via his website, Action Report online, which describes itself as a "human rights website", after the original venue declined to host the meeting. Kinuko Noborikawa, the co-chairwoman of Snohomish county's Human Rights Coalition, is reported as saying that she had photographed a poster of Adolf Hitler hanging over the centre's sign when she arrived. It was quickly removed.

Irving is best known for challenging the extent of the holocaust. After losing a controversial libel action in London which he had brought against an American academic who criticised him, he was declared bankrupt in March.