TARGU SECUIESC, Romania: Thousands of ethnic Hungarians have paraded in Romania to celebrate the Hungarian national holiday, calling for their minority to keep the broad autonomy it has long enjoyed.

Ethnic Hungarians rode horses and carts and waved Hungarian flags Friday, singing patriotic songs and shivering during traditional dances in rural mountain areas in Transylvania. They were whipped by winds with temperatures plunging to an icy -4 Celsius (25 Fahrenheit) as they celebrated the anniversary of the 1848 revolution against the Habsburg empire.

Romanian Hungarians enjoy broad autonomy, including the right to use their mother tongue in their schooling and in the courts.

But since an ethnic Hungarian party left the Romanian government last year after being a coalition partner for 15 years, some ethnic Hungarians fear their autonomy could be lost.