NEW YORK (AP) – It was one of those “only in New York” moments: Two coffins, laid out in the middle of Times Square in a cold rain, with the naked bodies of a man and a woman in them – talking.

Their message was: Some clothes sold in America are made with fur that comes from animals allegedly tortured in China.

“Animals are skinned alive in China, because it’s cheaper than to kill them humanely,” said Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, opening her eyes as she shivered in a black cardboard coffin, with a cold wind blowing the rain through the square.

Her body painted a deathly gray and strewn with flowers, she lay under a sign that read: “Fur is Dead.”

The Tuesday protest at the “Crossroads of the World” was promoted as an eBay auction lot that attracted donors who “bid” $43,000.

Another banner bore a grisly photo of what PETA protesters said was a raccoon dog – a fox-like mammal – that had been skinned alive.

Michael McGraw, a PETA spokesman, also asserted that millions of dogs and cats in China are used for their fur, which is then sold as fur from sheared coyote, beaver, mink and other animals.

PETA is distributing video footage shot by Swiss documentary filmmaker Mark Rissi that the group says shows fur farmers in China’s Hebei province swinging foxes by their hind legs and smashing their heads into the ground, breaking their necks.

PETA, based in Norfolk, Va., plans a series of protests around the world beginning with “Fur Free Friday” – coinciding with Friday after Thanksgiving, which generally is considered the busiest U.S. shopping day of the year.

In the 25 years since PETA was founded in Newkirk’s Maryland home, the organization says it has grown to include 850,000 members and supporters and about 200 employees with offices in Great Britain, India, Germany, the Netherlands, the Philippines and Hong Kong.