The Tamil National Alliance will use their election victories to push for a political solution for Tamils according to senior members.

In a special ‘victory statement’, the newly elected MP M. A. Sumanthiran said that he would uphold the mandate given him by the people, “while spending every breath to reach a political solution for our national problem, I will also participate in fulfilling the immediate needs of the people and in strengthening our youth.”

“The Tamil people cannot face anymore losses,” Mr Sumanthiran said. “Our youth can no longer be destroyed in their masses.”

The party leader, R Sampanthan also said that the TNA would waste no time in pushing for a political solution based on its election manifesto.

Tamil detainees in Anuradhapura prison have gone on hunger strike, in protest at mistreatment after the election results were announced and demanding a transfer to prisons near their native towns in the Tamil regions of the island.

The 49 detainees were locked in a small cell and were refused access to sanitary facilities and were given small tin cans to relieve themselves.

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.

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.

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.

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.