At the end of the day the situation was tragic but the defence of free speech against prevailing winds is incredibly important.
As for religious extremism... I don't think we will see an end until enlightenment spreads and religion fades into historic irrelevancy.
This is happening faster than people think, especially religious people as they can't see out of their bubble. At least here in Australia the vast majority of people may "identify" as Christian but they don't actually practice any semblance of faith. That being said the Christian lobby parties still have an unreasonably large amount of sway due to being a very vocal minority that leverages this weak "identity" of Australians to further their conservative agenda.
Nevertheless there is less and less children becoming indoctrinated into this nonsense and gaining access to real information sooner through the Internet that by the end of my lifetime I expect religion (in it's current form) in developed countries to be all but extinct.
I think extremism will still be around, it will just be over more real issues and less fairy tale beliefs.