An advert for a Swiss shopping centre that features a g-string superimposed onto a rabbit has been criticised for “promoting animal sex” by campaigners.

The Easter poster campaign, used to promote a new shop opening in Basel, Switzerland, has courted controversy for depicting a subversive ‘bunny girl’ with red underwear photoshopped onto a rabbit.

Critics say the animal is sexualised by the image, which links to bestiality and amounts to animal abuse.

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Daniel Bader from a Swiss animal protection group told the Tages Anzeiger newspaper: “From our point of view, the respect of the rabbit has been badly damaged.

“This is a clear sexualisation of an animal. As far as I'm concerned, it heads in the direction of bestiality and it stinks of promoting animal sex and the sexual abuse of animals”.

But the manager of the shopping centre that displayed the image has hit back at critics.

He told Central European News that images of attractive women in bunny ears and fluffy tails were clichéd, and that he wanted to do something different by using a real bunny.

A Swiss PR guru, Klaus J. Stoehlker, said the image was damaging to the lingerie company.

“If I was the boss of that Italian lingerie company I would take action over this advertising,” he said.

“I mean, who wants to see their sexy underwear stuck on such a fat rabbit backside?”