The SLFP's Jaffna organiser Angayan Ramanathan was selected as a national list member of parliament by the UPFA, after failing to be elected in the district.

Mr Ramanathan is suspected to have been behind attacks and abductions as he carried out the Rajapaksa brothers' bidding while the SLFP was in power before January this year.

Mahinda Rajapaksa's former human rights advisor Mahinda Samarasinghe was also selected as a national list MP after failing to get elected.

A Tamil woman on her way out of Sri Lanka was arrested at Colombo airport on Thursday, the fifth Tamil to be arrested at the country's main airport this week.

Jayanthini Siluvairasa (23) from Jaffna, was detained by the CID who said she was attempting to reach Italy via Abu Dhabi, JDS reported on Friday.

Ms Siluvairasa was brought before Negombo magistrate court , charged with carrying a forged passport and was remanded until 25th August.

The chairman of the Jathika Hela Urumaya, a hard line Sinhala nationalist party, has been selected by the UNP to become a member of parliament on its national list.

Athuraliye Ratana, a Buddhist monk, will represent the United Front for Good Governance and was selected alongside Karu Jayasuriya, UNP chair Malik Samarawickrama, D. M. Swaminathan and Dr. Jayampathy Wickramaratne to be on the national list of the party.

Sri Lanka has ranked 122nd out of 152 countries in the Human Freedom Index compiled by the Fraser Institute, which was released earlier this week.

The Human Freedom Index, which uses 76 indicators of personal, civil and economic freedoms, such as Association, Assembly, and Civil Society, Rule of Law, Security and Safety, Expression to rank countries from around the world.

Using data collected from 2008-2012, Sri Lanka ranked 128th on personal freedom and 98th on economic freedom.

The French government called on Sri Lanka to “promote human rights and reconciliation between communities” in the wake of this week’s parliamentary elections.

The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development Spokesperson in a statement, that it “stands alongside the Sri Lankan authorities and people in this process and intends to work with the new government toward strengthening our bilateral relations".

See the full statement here.

Four Tamils have been arrested at Colombo airport over the last week and are being held in a high security prison in Negombo, JDS reported on Thursday.

Two men were arrested after being deported from Turkey, while a man and a teenage woman were detained as they were about to board a flight to Qatar.

K Rajkumar (36) from Batticaloa and Gengadaran Saranya (19) from Puthukkudiyirippu were arrested on August 18. Police claimed that Mr Rajkumar was on his way to Malta via Italy and that Ms Saranya was going to join her husband in Switzerland, JDS said. They were both charged with carrying forged travel documents wyhen produced before courts by the CID on Wednesday.

Kurunathan Nirushan (26) from Kopay and Frederick Lawrence from Ragama were arrested following their deportation from Turkey on August 16. Both men were charged with possessing false travel documents.