Transylvanian Hungarian politician Károly Király has died at the age of 92, the Presidium of the Transylvanian Hungarian National Council announced.

"Károly Király, even during the years of the harshest national communist dictatorship openly stood up for the Hungarian community in Transylvania and protested against the disenfranchised situation of Hungarians. After the change of regime, he became the inevitable leading representative of the cause of autonomy , and as a member of the Romanian parliament, he uncompromisingly fought for the fulfillment of the representation of Hungarian interests in Transylvania, " the announcement states.

In recognition of his self-sacrificing work, the Transylvanian Hungarian National Council awarded him the Károly Kós Award in 2013. In his eulogy, among other things, it is stated: "as one of the first frontmen of the idea of ​​autonomy in Romania of the 1970s, in the land of silence and darkness, he was the first voice to oppose the tyrants and started the moral and intellectual awakening of Transylvanian Hungarians".

Károly Király was the vice president of the Romanian Senate from May 1990. In the same year, he founded the League of National Minority and Ethnic Associations. In 1991, he was the only one of the 514 members of the Romanian parliament who did not participate in the voting of the new constitution, due to its anti-minority passage, for which he was deprived of his senatorial mandate. In 1993, he founded the Székely Village Foundation, supporting the Székely villages with agricultural machinery and helping churches, civil, political and youth organizations, large families, and the elderly with more than half a billion lei. In recognition of his struggle for the rights and self-determination of the Transylvanian Hungarians, the head of state awarded Károly Király Király, the founder of the RMDSZ, with the Central Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit with a Star in November 2015. The recognition was presented by Sándor Lezsák, the Deputy Speaker of the Parliament, in the Parliament.

Source: erdely.ma/kronikaonline.ro

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