I pictured Baghdad as Black Hawk Down's Mogadishu, all claustrophobic and high-contrast gun battles with desperate men in dark alleys, and mostly I heard Ride of the Valkyries, that grim killing opus in Apocalypse Now, retrofitted for our urban assaults and nighttime raids.
The number of people reporting assaults has more than doubled since the first of the country's three Rainbo centres opened in 2003, reflecting a growing awareness that violence against women is a punishable crime, and that women can access treatment.
Dark discussions, but as the statistics on campus assaults prove, necessary ones nonetheless.
Most sexual assaults are committed by somebody known to the victim, often from their inner circle of friends and family," she said.
On July 13, Qatar's resolution, condemning the Israeli military assaults on Gaza and the Palestinian groups' firing of rockets at Israel and abduction of its soldiers, secured 10 votes with four abstentions.
However, the rioting, looting, vandalism and assaults from Croydon to Manchester should be placed in some context.
The attack last Friday on the al-Ghani oilfield near the town of Zalla, 750km (470 miles) south-east of the capital, Tripoli, was part of a series of deadly assaults on Libya's oil infrastructure by Isis.
Twelve people were murdered by gunmen at the magazine's offices earlier this year, and PEN's American branch has said that it "deserves to be recognised for its dauntlessness in the face of one of the most noxious assaults on expression in recent memory".
She said they had little information to give the inquiry about sexual assaults but were extremely upset about them.
While tourists are welcomed with open arms at Egypt's tourist sites, most Cairo-based journalists have experienced similar assaults in crowds, at the hands of both local citizens and police.
Members of the group were arrested for public order offences and assaults on security staff," he said in a statement.
