Hossein Rajabian is an Iranian filmmaker and photographer from Sari. He was arrested shortly after he finished producing and filming his first film called The Upside-Down Triangle, about the right of women to divorce in Iran. He was arrested alongside his brother, Mehdi Rajabian, for managing the Barg Music site, which published underground and unlicensed music. Hossein Rajabian also won the Global Investigative Journalism Network's Choice Award for Rebellion's Artist in the World in 2017.

Hossein Rajabian was arrested at his recording studio in Sari, along with his brother, Mehdi, and Yousef Emadi, another Iranian composer, on October 5, 2013.

After more than two months of detention and interrogation in Section 2A of Evin Prison, under the control of the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Hossein Rajabian, Mehdi Rajabian and Yousef Emadi were released from prison on a bail of 200 million tomans.

In October 2015, Mehdi Rajabian, Hossein Rajabian and Yousef Emadi were each sentenced to six years imprisonment and a monetary fine in Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court, presided over by the Judge Moghiseh. The three artists were charged with “propaganda activities against the state” and “blasphemy.”

After objecting to the lower court’s sentence, the case went to appeal. The appeal hearings were held in Branch 54 of the Court of Appeals of Tehran on December 22, 2015. The Court of Appeals reduced the sentences for all three defendants to three years imprisonment, three years suspended imprisonment and a monetary fine of 20 million tomans.

On June 5, 2016, the Rajabian brothers, along with Yousef Emadi, reported to Evin Prison to serve their prison sentences.

In a statement issued by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, on June 24, 2016, Karima Bennoune, the UN Special Rapporteur on Cultural Rights, and David Kaye, Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, called for the release of the three artists.

During his imprisonment, Hossein Rajabian contracted a severe infection in his left kidney. As his illness worsened, he went on hunger strike to protest the lack of medical care that he received in prison.

Hossein Rajabian and Mehdi Rajabian were later granted a temporary prison furlough. While the brothers were still on furlough from prison, they were informed that they had been released from prison and that they would not have to return.

Hossein Rajabian’s protests against his prison sentence and the seizure of material of his first film, when he was arrested, eventually led to full censorship and a ban on screenings of the film. In response to this, Hossein Rajabian released a lower-quality version of the film online for free.

Hossein Rajabian directed and produced his second film “Creation Between Two Surfaces”  in 2019 while he was serving a work ban as part of his sentence.