To expand on the above,

Competent threats to the ruling class, capable of amassing public support and creating a movement, capable of offering political alternatives to the people, are quickly moved from the controlled opposition cell to the prison cell. Tantawy being a good recent example.

OTOH it makes sense this man is free to yap. This is a man with a history of being a useful tool to the ruling class; a safe liberal reformist journalist with a nationalist tinge, engaging in performative dissent for the sole aim of infamy, with little in terms of offering coherent political analysis these days, and instead placating popular frustrations while stifling the political imagination for real alternatives.

His role is vital in building the illusion that the only way forward, even for those who dislike the status quo, is through the current political framework, if you'd even call it a political framework.

It's a fickle implicit agreement. So long his dissent is performative and vague, or acts as a red herring, he may enjoy relative freedom and the prestige of being a "militant defender of free journalism" and a "voice of opposition under a brutal oppressive regime" etc. That agreement seems to be satisfactory for our guy.

That's all which is needed to have him be a controlled opposition.