He was born in 1951 in Budapest. At the age of 16, he was a founding member of the newly-formed artist group called Monsoun. In 1972, at the Hungarian talent competition (Ki-Mit-Tud) she meets with Ágnes Daróczi, who has been his wife and a fellow worker ever since. They participated in the formation of the Romani civil rights movement.

He received a degree in law at ELTE in 1977. At the end of his studies, he becomes the secretary of the Roma Coordination Committee in Budapest: he organizes the elimination of Roma settlements, builds a family care network, carries out advocacy work, organizes Roma childcare and initiates the establishment of a Roma cultural institution (Roma Social and Methodological Center Budapest, later Romano Kher).

He participates in the work of Amalipe and Phralipe, develops a proposal for the institutionalization of the minority legal system. After the democratic changes, he becomes the member of the Parliament’s Minority Committee and later on of the Minority Roundtable. From 1995 to 2004, he is the program director of the Roma Civil Rights Foundation. He conducts Roma historical researches, conducted a research on the Roma holocaust and published together with Ágnes Daróczi.