The 26-foot copper statue, known as the “Pillar of Shame,” was created by the Danish sculptor Jens Galschiot in 1996 and shows a pile of naked corpses arranged into what looks like a ghastly obelisk. It commemorates the June 4, 1989, massacre of pro-democracy students and workers around Tiananmen Square by the Chinese government.

The Tiananmen massacre is among the most delicate topics in Chinese politics and has been largely erased from history on the Chinese mainland. But for more than two decades, Mr. Galschiot’s statue was a symbol of the pro-democracy movement in a territory that enjoyed freedoms unimaginable in the mainland.

In 1997, weeks before Britain returned the territory to Chinese control, the statue was shipped to Hong Kong and exhibited at an annual candlelight vigil for Tiananmen victims, according to the Hong Kong Free Press, a local news organization. It was later moved to the campus of the University of Hong Kong.